When upon the poor gentleman, starved and re-fettered, descended
once more the sick loneliness of confinement, he assured himself that
only a little time now was needed to see the quenching of his last
spark of reason. He was so exhausted and unstrung--so doubly weakened
by this latest wanton cantrip of Fortune, as to feel that the spirit
of venture, fluttering within him on a broken wing, was physically
incapable at last of the least independence of action. He looked upon
himself as one who, having half raised a fallen treasure from a
near-inaccessible ledge, has let it slip out of pure carelessness into
the abyss; and so regarding his folly, he was miserably ready, like
the born gambler he was, to cry Kismet! over his punishment.
The girl it was concerned him most--prominently for her own sake, but
also because he might not guess what her seizure betokened, or what
weak defences had made the fact of it possible. About her condition,
or her safety in the midst of these lawless ruffians, his brain was
too worn to speculate; but at least he could understand that the
purpose for which she was held would not be allowed to perish upon
itself of inaction.
He was only numbly conscious of the passing hours; the semi-torpor
induced by cold and hunger deadened the pain of his scarified wrists,
and he sat or lay huddled against the hearth unmoved to the least
further effort of self-release. Sometimes, as evening crept on and
darkened, he was aware, in a confused manner, of jangling sounds about
the house that he dimly associated with the definite business of
life--the rattle of pans and of crockery; the purr of rough voices
strangely attuned to the pitch eloquent of the domestic virtues;
later, a harsher medley of discords--the song, the quarrel, the crash
of boisterous mirth, and often enough the thud of blows or shuffle of
drunken feet. Intermittently through all, the penance-walk of the
sentry in the passage went monotonously on, now dragging sullenly, now
moved to some spasmodic briskness as the laugh bubbled high in the
kitchen, now accented with a curse like a dog’s snap at a fly.
Intermittently, too, came the hum of voices from the room opposite,
sinking and swooping and moaning, as if a wind of evil thoughts were
there gathering for any purpose of destruction.
And the night deepened, and the cold; and deep sank the expression of
both into his tormented soul.
Once he thought he heard a window opened and the sound of voices in
parley; and at that the least spark of hope flickered in him that
negotiations (of what nature he was too stupefied to so much as
remotely conceive) were in process on his behalf. But the murmur
ceased and the glass was rattled to, and a profounder misery settled
upon him that the little needle of light had showed itself to vanish.
He was abandoned to his fate; and about that he felt no bitterness.
Only he greatly desired that the climax of his personal affairs should
suffer no long postponement.
It may have been an hour short of midnight when, with his sad eyes
fixed upon the moonlit square of window, his lids closed involuntarily
and he sank into a sort of unresting stupor of the faculties. How long
this travesty of sleep dwelt with him he might not know; but in an
instant he had leapt from it and made as if to scramble to his feet.
Something, that seemed to his disordered mind horribly suggestive of
evil, had come between him and the white patch of the casement.
He tried to cry out, and found no power but for a sigh; and suddenly
the shape was beside him, silently, on its knees, and an arm was round
his neck and a soft hand upon his mouth.
“Betty, Betty, Betty!” whispered a tiny febrile voice in his ear--and
instantly he knew, and, giving a little broken whinny, dropped his
tired head upon her shoulder.
She clasped him, and she made no shame to kiss him with her lips like
flowers; and then very gently, very pitifully, she passed her fingers
over his right ear, over his left, and gave a heaving sigh from the
bosom that lifted against his cheek.
“Oh, the cowards, the cowards!” she whispered, “to fright me so, and
for a lie!”
He found a little voice for her. He would have, I think, from the
grave.
“Are you come to save me, Betty?”
“Yes.”
“My hands are tied behind. They are so cut and bound I have lost all
feeling in them; and if I shouldn’t be able to rise, Betty?”
She held his head to her convulsively. She cried silently, as a woman
can if she will.
“We must not be a moment,” she whispered. “I hear them talking. We
must move like mice. There is a horror outside; but what of it, if it
let me pass to you.”
She put her hand again on his mouth, tacitly bidding him to the most
tense silence. With her heart torn with pity, she bent and examined
the knots. They were cruelly drawn, but love and good white teeth will
work sufficient miracles. She had cracked harder nuts in her time. He
felt her at work like a rat, vicious and determined. Once he felt lips
light like down on the bruised members, and he thought. Though they
were mortified and dead they should quicken at that.
All of a sudden his hands were free. He would have endeavoured to
rise, but with a quick gesture she kept him down. She came to the
front, and swiftly with her strong young arms pulled the boots from
his numbed feet.
“Now!” she signified.
He was up in a moment. Broken as he was, the stimulus given his spirit
by the devotion of this true soul was divine. Supporting him with all
her love, she helped him step by step across the floor. Then for the
first time he noticed that the girl was in her stockinged feet, and
that the casement stood wide to the freezing night.
Come to the opening, he stooped his face to hers with a very pathetic
look.
“Not now,” she whispered. “Not an instant for delay or
explanation”--but seeing what he would be at, she put an arm to his
neck, and drew his lips hard against hers.
The sill was but a step to an active wench. Betty was outside,
scarcely having released his hands; and then she turned and beckoned.
At her nod, another appeared at the opening--Dennis, by all the
alphabet of wonder! She bade him to keep perfect silence by a word.
The good fellow was white as ashes, and as he came up he was fumbling
a long blade into his pocket. The moonlight revealed a wide horrified
look in his eyes. He was like a saint whom love has defrauded of
heaven.
He took his master under the arms, and with a convulsive effort haled
him out into the snow. Inevitably a little noise resulted. Betty gave
an indrawn gasp; but by all good luck a burst of laughter from within
covered the accident.
Tuke stood like a drunken man, swaying and staring vacantly about him.
Against the porch he was aware of a misshapen bundle.
“God forgive me, sir,” said Dennis. “’Twas for you I did it.”
The woman was the Roman.
“He died at his post,” she whispered; “and I would have done it
blithely myself for this. And Mr. Whimple, he has stood guard at the
door and left me only the sweets of service.”
Then she said, “Are you strong now to come?” and, seeing her poor
gentleman all weak and bewildered, she held him again pitifully and
bade Dennis to his other side; and so they led him, with what
swiftness they could compass and creeping like frantic things, out
through the lodge-gate and a little way up the foundered road, until
they came to that very snowy gap in the brushwood through which the
party of wanderers had forced their way three days before. And
presently--for the moon made all distinct--they broke and stumbled
into the clearing and stood before the ice-house.
“Betty,” then murmured her master--“I must not question; but why not
push up the drive, now the coast is clear?--And here we shall only
die.”
“Oh! you are wise,” she cried, with a little triumphant laugh--a
pretty confection of love and relief and tears. “You are wise and
bold, but not a little stupid perhaps. Who shall say that another
sentry is not posted between the lodge and the house? And now you are
to see.”
She put her shapely foot against the door and pushed it open. She
jumped into the jaws of Erebus, and held up her arms to him; and he
let himself down into them, trusting, and was taken and rejoiced over.
“Now,” she said, “whatever comes we are safe to win clear, and I will
cry a little. But I can cry walking.”
“And will you explain a little, Betty?”
“This is no ice-house; or at least it is only the mouth of an
underground passage, that leads straight through into that you call
the ‘Priest’s Hole.’”
“Betty!”
“I have heard grandfather (woe is me--the poor old man!) talk o’t many
a time. For he worked here when a lad in the service of Sir Thomas
Woodruff. And I doubted not your honour knew; though the end in truth
was choked with rubbish. But when you returned not, and the rogues
came in force and made their purpose clear, we women watched wi’ sore
hearts from the shelter of the roof, and we saw Sir David Blythewood
and the captain come out on to the snow by the fringe of the shaw no
earlier than this morning; and I cried at once, ‘They ha’ taken refuge
in the ice-house, and have lain there in ignorance to this moment!’”
“Go on, Betty. Are you sure of the way? Never mind my crowing, girl. I
haven’t broken food or tasted drink for three days, and my lungs are
like glass paper.”
“Oh me! but I will not cry for a minute. I took Jim, and we found our
way to the hole and went down into it; and there sure enough under the
ledge was a stone in the wall that turned on a great pin; and this we
swung round and saw a black gully shoot before us. Well, we took a
candle and entered, and not twenty feet in, the light went out and we
had to walk in darkness.”
“Oh, my child, my little Betty! That said ‘Go back!’ as plain as foul
gas could speak.”
“Did it? It was close and stifling, of course; but we took hands and
won through this very tunnel we are creeping along now; and all of a
sudden we came to rubbish and the murmur of voices. At that Jim
shouted. They were close at hand and heard us plain; and in ten
minutes we had made a hole through the heap big enough to pass
through.”
“And foolish they must have looked to hear how they had sat down to
die within reach of rescue.”
“Maybe.”
“Did they not, Betty?”
“How should I know? I had no eyes for them. You weren’t there.”
He stopped in the black darkness and put his arms about her.
“Dennis,” he murmured back. “Are you following? Don’t run us down, but
listen to this. I love Betty Pollack with all my heart and soul.”
The girl burst into tears.
“Don’t!” she whispered, and clung to him convulsively.
He said softly over his shoulder:
“Take up the tale, Whimple. She saved you?”
“She saved us, sir. We had dwelt there like fools. We had waited
anxiously for your return; and at last, when hope was failing us, Sir
David set off in your tracks, fought his way to the lodge, and came
within view of the truth. He saw the villains all about the place, and
had much ado to keep himself secret. But he managed to steal back
unobserved; and all that afternoon till dark one or other of us was
posted in the wood watching for your return. And so the night shut
upon us again, and we tried to comfort ourselves with the assurance
that you had had warning, had evaded the enemy, and had made your way
round to the house by a circuitous path. Sir, when this good girl
saved us, and we came to know you had probably fallen into Fern’s
hands, I think there was none in the world more broken-hearted than
Dennis Whimple.”
“Good fellow! But who gave you confirmation of the truth?”
“Fern himself, sir--the bloody villain himself. He came before the
house at noon to-day, with a flag of truce--that Sir David would
respect, though the captain desired to shoot him then and there--and
told us that he had you a prisoner. Now Sir David would not let him
know that we three was returned, hoping thereby to tempt him and his
band to venture themselves to their destruction--as they already
deemed the little garrison to be innocent of fighting men--and he sent
one of the grooms to parley. And Fern promised this man one of his
master’s members for every refusal of the stone he should receive.
This, Captain Luvaine regarded as an idle menace; but later, some one
looking out of the window saw in a snow-drift against the drive-end a
pole posted; and nailed to the top of this was a horrible fragment,
and underneath a paper, with ‘Tuke’s right ear’ written bold thereon.”
Betty shuddered in the arms of her dear knight.
“’Twas a beastly act,” he said sternly, “for which, if I live, that
bitter scoundrel shall pay in full. And you believed it?”
“Sir David was for sallying forth at once by way of this passage; but
he was over-ridden, and it was judged wiser to make the attempt at
rescue by night. Then comes Betty, sir, and claims the post of danger
for her woman’s wit--and, and----”
“Mr. Whimple must squire me for love of his master. And we prevailed,
and here is your honour, and--oh! my love--my only love!”
And Betty gave full vent to her tears at last--though she cried very
silently, like a thoughtful girl.
Now, it must not be supposed that throughout this explanation Mr.
Tuke’s devoted members were in full vigour of speech and hearing. He
asked and listened and answered, indeed, in a manner of tender
emotion; but he must lean against the tunnel wall for support of his
trembling limbs the while, and his voice was so weak that sometimes it
was barely audible.
Suddenly, however, he pulled himself up with a jerk as if a shot had
struck him, and, “God in heaven!” he cried--“the girl--Darda!”
A surprised pause followed.
“Sir,” said Dennis, in a trembling voice--“what do you mean?”
“My God! don’t you know where she is?”
“I haven’t seen her since she greeted me on my return. She gave me
food and drink and went--to the house-top, I thought. You know her
ways, sir.”
“She is in Fern’s hands. They brought her to me in evidence.”
A second pause as of death befell. The girl in his arms held her
breath.
“I must go back,” said Dennis, in a lost, low voice--“I must go back.”
Tuke struggled to free himself.
“Come!” he said--“we will go together.”
Betty held him like a mad thing.
“You shall not!” she cried. “Are you crazed? What could you do but
weaken Mr. Whimple’s hands? And he would have two to his care instead
of one. The girl is right and wily. She’ll have her plans, I warrant.”
Still he struggled feebly in the encircling arms.
“Run, Mr. Whimple!” she cried. “I will hold him that he cannot
follow!”
The echo of the man’s footsteps already came from a distance.
“Betty!” panted her master reproachfully. “Oh! what do you make of
me?”
“One, I hope, that’ll hold himself sound for all our sakes. For shame!
Have you not duties forward?”
He must allow himself to succumb to this sweet sophist. They stumbled
on together once more through the dank and inky blackness. Their
unshod and frozen feet suffered cruelly on the rough floor, and many
little exclamations of pain were forced from either.
“Who was it that was hit by the villains, Betty?”
“’Twas the lord creature.”
“Good God! Then he and Miss Royston are there after all?”
“Aye; they be.”
“And is he killed?”
“Not he; though were he, he couldn’t make more noise about it.”
Tuke laughed feebly--a little bleat that was music to the other.
“Have I said something foolish? But we read of chance folks whose
death makes a noise, your honour.”
“My honour again? But I’ll not gainsay you, darling. My honour and
yours. Will you be my wife, Betty? And stay here and rest awhile,
sweetheart, and we’ll choose the colour of the wedding-gown.”